Slocum and the Yellowback Trail

by Jake Logan

  Just when it seemed she would collapse from exhaustion, Jessica scooted away, flipped around to face him, and pushed Slocum onto his back. From there, she crawled on top of him, eased his cock up into her, and then started grinding her hips. Instead of riding him as she’d done earlier, she lay on top of him and simply moved her hips in various ways.

  Sometimes she pumped them back and forth, but mostly it was in circles, massaging his cock with her wet pussy until it was Slocum’s turn to collapse.

  “Jesus Christ,” he sighed.

  Jessica smiled and watched him.

  All Slocum could do was run his hands along her body and feel every last one of her movements. She seemed to know right when to speed up again, sapping every last bit of his strength.

  Slocum woke up when he was jostled in his bed. Opening his eyes, he still felt weak as he shifted around to find Jessica sitting naked on the edge of the mattress. He watched her for a little while as she eased into her clothes layer by layer. She didn’t notice she had an audience until she was lacing up her boots.

  “You’re awful happy this morning,” she said after getting a look at his face.

  “Is it morning? I suppose that would explain the light through the window.”

  Moving her hands all the way to the top of her boots in a way that hiked her skirts up enough to show a good portion of her thigh, she asked, “Like that, do you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well that’s all you can have for now,” she said while tightening the laces and letting her dress fall back down to cover them. “I’ve got matters to tend to.”

  “Before you go, I’ve got a question.”

  “If you’re asking about me coming back, I’d say the odds are pretty good.”

  “That’s fine, but not what I was going to ask. Where did you meet up with Edward Corrington?”

  If she’d been mildly disappointed with not being the subject of the question, Jessica was positively dismayed when she heard what had really been on Slocum’s mind. “I happened to meet Walter in New Orleans.”

  “You mean his editor, Walter Saunders?”

  “That’s right. I work in a little shop there that sells Eddie’s books. I found out who Walter was and convinced him to introduce me to Eddie. Well, before you know it, I was invited along for a boat ride up the Mississippi for this traveling event of his.”

  Slocum sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Wait a second! You’re telling me he’s been spouting off about those books as far south as New Orleans?”

  “It’s all he talks about,” she said. “He’s very passionate.”

  “Since he’s traveling with a harem of three women, I’d say so.”

  Jessica giggled and used a little silver comb to straighten some of the more unruly sections of her hair. “Rose came in from Baton Rouge to meet Eddie, and Walter invited her to come along with us. She spends her nights with Walter and only pretends to worship Eddie when other folks can see. It’s supposed to make him look like a big man. Hannah’s just a little sweetie from Little Rock, innocent as you please. Eddie’s had his sights set on her for a while, but those two are like a couple of puppies sniffing each other a bit before scampering away.”

  “You mean you and Edward haven’t . . . ?”

  “Not yet,” she replied. “I’ve been closing in and meant to give Eddie something to write about while we were in Chicago. That part of the trip was canceled because Walter said there weren’t a lot of sales coming from there.”

  “Thank God for small favors,” Slocum grumbled.

  Continuing to comb her hair while fretting with getting her dress just right, Jessica said, “Eddie’s so shy. It was going to be delicious when I finally got him alone. Every now and then, he would touch my knee or say something as if he was the one getting ready to pounce. Precious.”

  “Have you ever seen a man named Michael Harper?”

  “Sure,” Jessica replied quickly enough to shock Slocum. “He showed up at most of the last bunch of Eddie’s book parties. I even saw him sneaking in and out of this hotel.”

  “What did you say?”

  She shrugged and stuck the comb in her hair so only the silver band could be seen. “He usually stays in the same place as Eddie. I don’t think he wants to spook anyone, though, because he comes and goes so he’s not noticed.”

  “But you noticed,” Slocum pointed out.

  “I notice a lot of things.”

  “Did you notice him shooting at us the other night?”

  That caught her off guard, but Jessica was too composed to let it show as anything more than a flinch. “Certainly not. It doesn’t surprise me, though. He always did have crazy eyes.”

  “And you didn’t say anything when someone with crazy eyes showed up to meet Mr. Corrington?”

  She chuckled and patted Slocum on the cheek. “You obviously haven’t been to a lot of those parties. As far as last night goes, I didn’t see much of anything apart from a whole lot of people running around like headless chickens as those shots went off. There was someone in a window, but that’s all I could make out. It was so exciting!”

  “Do you know what room he’s in here?”

  “Yes. I could get you in if you like.”

  Now it was Slocum’s turn to be caught by surprise. “How?”

  “I have a key that opens the doors to all the guest rooms.”

  “A skeleton key?”

  “Yep. I convinced the man at the front desk to let me borrow it. Like I told you, I planned on giving Eddie a surprise, but then you came along.” Looking him up and down like a hungry fox, she added, “I would have used it to get into this room, but I wasn’t sure how you’d react. A man as dangerous as you is liable to do anything.”

  Slocum stepped up to her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and held her tightly. “You’re quite a woman, Jessica.”

  “I know.”

  19

  When Slocum made his way to the dining room, it was the time of day where late arrivals for breakfast were headed down, the early birds were on their way back up, hotel workers were cleaning up, and just about everyone else was carrying their bags to the lobby. Rather than fight all of that like a fish swimming upstream, Slocum sat down for breakfast. Most of the food had already been picked over, but there were enough biscuits and gravy left over to put a sizeable dent in his hunger. He was savoring his third cup of coffee when someone stomped into the dining room.

  Sykes was in rough shape. His eye was blackened. His face was flushed and covered in fresh scrapes. There was even some dried blood along his hairline. He walked over to Slocum’s table, noisily pulled out a chair, and dropped himself down onto it.

  “You look like hell,” Slocum said.

  “I do, huh? You sit there sipping your fucking tea and point out that I look like hell. Well isn’t that just fucking astute of you to notice?”

  “Not tea,” Slocum said. “It’s coffee.”

  Sykes stared at him as if he was about to bust the table into pieces with his bare hands. Rather than give in to the fire that was obviously raging in him, he replied, “Proper and astute. What a delightful mix. Too bad you weren’t observant enough to realize I turned up missing last night.”

  “To be honest, I was glad you didn’t show up. I figured you’d heard that woman from Corrington’s table last night wailing through the door and saved me the trouble of sending you away.”

  Despite the cuts, bumps, and bruises on his face, Sykes seemed genuinely intrigued when he asked, “Was it that sweet little blonde?”

  “No. It was the one with the red hair.”

  “Good choice. While you were wrestling with her, I was getting ambushed by that pimp from Chicago. You know, the one you told me about?”

  “James. What happened?”

  “Him and that little prick partner of his jumped me when I was out surveying the local flavor.”

  “Which saloon did they find you at?” Slocum asked.

  “
Sadie’s. It’s two streets down. My intention was to spend the night away from that room so I could get some peace of mind. Well,” Sykes added, “a piece of something. Know what I mean? So I was on my way and they jumped me. That little prick cracked me on the back of the head and the other one beat the tar out of me.”

  “Why wouldn’t they just shoot you?”

  Sykes straightened up and raised his eyebrows in an expression of pure horror. “Is that how you’d treat your partners?”

  “No, but after the other night, I don’t see why Harper would go through the trouble of tracking you down, laying an ambush, and seeing it through just to knock you around.”

  “Harper wasn’t there,” Sykes said. “This was just them other two. They knocked me around because they knew I was a friend of yours. Told me to deliver a message to you.”

  “Ahh. That makes more sense.”

  The waitress stopped by the table and smiled cheerily at Slocum. “Is there anything else I can get for you?” Although her eyes widened a bit when she got a look at Sykes, she didn’t let it dim her smile.

  “Since my friend is buying, I’ll have steak and eggs, some potatoes, a bowl of grits, and some of that coffee.”

  When the waitress looked over to him, Slocum nodded.

  “I’ll round that up for you, sir.”

  “When that prick knocked me over the head, he took my gun,” Sykes said after the waitress left. “I still ain’t got it back!”

  “What was the message you were supposed to deliver?”

  “James said that if you fixed the damage you caused him in Chicago, he’d see to it that Harper left us alone.”

  Slocum laughed as if he was spitting each chuckle out like a hunk of rotten meat.

  “Yeah,” Sykes said. “That’s pretty much what I thought. Even when I was dizzy after getting punched in the stomach I didn’t believe that one. He did agree to set Harper up for us, though.”

  “That’s still as long as I help him fix what happened in Chicago?”

  “Yeah.”

  Slocum took a drink of coffee before telling him, “By that, James means put a bullet though my head in return for his friend getting killed. Or it could also mean getting me to Chicago and killing me there so everyone can see he’s not some whipped dog that was chased away from its own home. You know that, right?”

  “How the hell would I know that? I came up with something better than trusting either of them two.”

  “Oh, well that’s good, I suppose.”

  “I say we go along as far as we need to go to get that bounty hunter off of our tails, clean up the situation with that writer, and then bury James and his little prick partner somewhere between here and Chicago. What do you say to that?”

  Just as he was about to answer, Slocum focused his attention on the other side of the room. “Is that the little blonde from Corrington’s supper table?”

  Sykes turned around and nearly twisted himself out of his chair to get a look at Hannah sitting by herself at a table. At that same time, Slocum got a look at Sykes from a different angle. His hair was far from clean, but it sure didn’t have the blood soaked into it that one might expect after getting hit hard enough to be put down. By the time Sykes turned back around, Slocum was taking another sip of coffee. “She’s one pretty little thing, ain’t she?” Sykes mused.

  “Yes she is. So how are you supposed to let James know if you’re going along with his plan?”

  “They’ll come by here to check on us.”

  “Will Harper be coming as well?”

  “I don’t see why he would,” Sykes replied. “That’d go against the whole idea of the meeting.”

  “Not if the idea was to bring us into another trap. I’ve got to say this is a pretty sloppy attempt.”

  “Nobody said James or that other little prick was very smart.”

  “Not them,” Slocum said. “I meant you.”

  Sykes was still glaring at him when the waitress returned with a cup of hot coffee and a bowl of warm grits. Sensing the tension in the air, she was quick to leave once her duty was done. Sykes picked up a spoon, stirred the melting butter into his grits, and then used that same spoon to stir his coffee.

  “That’s disgusting,” Slocum said.

  “It sure is. Accusing me of running some sort of plan after all we been through? You should be ashamed.”

  “Look at your coffee. There’s grits floating in there now. Were you raised by wild animals?”

  “Forget about what I eat, John. I don’t like you talkin’ to me that way.”

  “And I don’t like some two-bit gunhand trying to set me up for another bunch of two-bit gunhands,” Slocum replied. “That whole story you just told me was a joke and you know it. If you were going to go so far as to get your face bloodied, the least you could have done was get some sort of wound on the back of your head to go along with the rest of your account.”

  “You just think you’re so smart, don’t you?” Sykes said in a rumbling snarl. “You come up with one way of seeing something, so that’s gotta be the only way there is. Well Edward Corrington came up with a way of lookin’ at something and look where that got him. Here you go,” he said while taking off his hat and slapping it onto the table. “Happy now?”

  When Sykes twisted his head around, Slocum got a real good look at the blood crusted into his hair an inch or two above the groove made by his hat band.

  “For your information,” Sykes continued, “if I’d wanted to set you up for some sort of fall, I could’ve just told you to follow me into a dead-end alley for a drink. I’ve spent enough time riding with you to know you’d go anywhere if someone offered you a bottle of whiskey.”

  “All right. That’s—”

  Cutting Slocum off with a sharply upraised finger, Sykes told him, “Or I could have just knifed you in your sleep since you insisted on keeping me close enough to watch at all times. And as for the rest of your so-called opinions, I don’t give a damn if there’s some grits floating in my coffee. I happen to like the way the little bit of coffee on my spoon tastes when I eat my grits.” To emphasize his point, Sykes scooped up some grits with his coffee-covered spoon and practically jammed them down his throat.

  “You through?” Slocum asked.

  “Hell no. I got a whole bowl left, plus my steak and eggs comin’.”

  “I meant with all your carrying on. Are you through with that?”

  Reluctantly, Sykes muttered, “Yeah, I suppose so. I coulda saved myself a beating and handed you over right away.”

  “Or you could have not allowed yourself to get bush-whacked.”

  “Go to hell,” Sykes snapped before stuffing another spoonful of grits into his mouth.

  “Aww, don’t be sore. I bought you breakfast, so maybe I could round up some flowers to go along with it. Would that make you feel better?”

  Although Sykes’s words couldn’t be understood through the grits, their intent was easy enough to discern. Even with every syllable being garbled beyond recognition, the tone was angry enough to draw more than a few curious glances from other folks in the dining room.

  “Sorry about that,” Slocum said. “What do you think we should do about the men who jumped you?”

  “Draw them out into the open and burn them down.”

  “Sounds simple enough. And Harper?”

  Sykes tapped his spoon on his chin while contemplating. “Don’t know yet. I think we might be able to deal with him rational.”

  “Falling back on reason, huh? That’s a Gentleman Killer for you.”

  “Seems like Edward is more scared of Harper than we are. Maybe he could help us get the drop on him. He’s been a slippery little cuss.”

  “That’s just because we’ve been approaching him the wrong way.” Shrugging, Slocum added, “All this time, I’ve treated him like a bounty hunter, and it turns out that he’s just some loon trying to impress a writer. Worse yet, he thinks those books are fact because he’s crazy. If it was just a mistake o
r an out-of-control rumor, I could wrap my head around it. Dealing with crazies is something else entirely.”

  “I dealt with plenty of them and you’re right. There’s no rhyme or reason. No way to predict what they’re about to do.”

  “There’s rhyme and reason,” Slocum said. “We just need to start thinking like a crazy person.”

  Furrowing his brow, Sykes curled his lip and looked as if he’d bitten his tongue before finally admitting, “That ain’t so easy.”

  “It may be if we can get a peek at whatever it is he’s brought with him all this way while tagging along with Harper. We may even be able to get the drop on him for a change if we knew where to look.”

  As Slocum was speaking, the waitress returned with a plate of runny eggs and a cut of beef that was so rare it practically still had fur growing on it. Judging by how she set the plate in front of Sykes and hurried away, the server had been hoping to speed him out of the dining room as quickly as possible.

  “What’s her problem?” Sykes asked.

  “You’re an armed man covered in blood and spouting off like you’re ready to flip this table over. What do you think her problem is?”

  Sykes shrugged and cut into his steak. “Too bad we don’t know where he’s staying.”

  “I’ll know pretty soon.”

  Stopping with his fork less than an inch from his mouth, Sykes asked, “You will? How?”

  “From what I’ve heard, he’s right here in this hotel.” As he spoke, Slocum watched the lady who’d just entered the dining room.

  Jessica strode up to his table, brushed a hand along his shoulder, and used the other to place a key in front of him. “Top of the steps,” she whispered. “All the way to the right.” Her eyes lingered on Sykes’s bloodied face, showing more than a little bit of interest before she smirked and walked away.